Mifare4Mobile Group to develop next generation NFC transport ticketing services

NXP has joined forces with Ericsson, Gemalto, Oberthur Technologies, STMicroelectronics, Venyon and Vivotech to form an industry group that aims to develop a new generation of NFC-based transport ticketing services.

Now, the Mifare4Mobile industry group plans to further develop the specifications to include support for the more sophisticated Mifare DESFire technology and for systems involving multiple Trusted Service Managers. Interface specification licenses will be available free of charge.

“As an increased number of companies begin to develop their own NFC applications to support transactions such as ticketing, there is an increased need for collaboration with other partners in the ecosystem to enable interoperable over-the-air configuration of SIM cards and handsets,” says the new group. “The Mifare4Mobile industry group, which includes both hardware partners and trusted service managers, will actively support the global adoption of NFC and the needs of all stakeholders.

“The group will act as a platform to provide future direction, discuss experiences and share best practices to ensure evolution, interoperable development and implementation of the Mifare4Mobile technology,” it adds.

Mifare4Mobile comprises a set of APIs which cover:

Wallet and user interface APIs. These are designed to ensure a consistent user experience, provide interoperability with other card formats and render card content on the phone screen in a convenient and flexible way.

Over-the-air and trusted service manager APIs. These are designed to allow OTA providers to access Mifare resources on any secure element in a consistent way and to ensure a uniform approach to Mifare application life cycle management.

Secure element platform APIs. These are designed to provide common access to the hardware resources of the Mifare portfolio.

“The Mifare4Mobile technology enables mobile network operators, trusted services managers and service providers to seamlessly leverage NFC-enabled mobile phone services on the existing vast Mifare infrastructures around the world,” says Dr Nav Bains, the GSM Association‘s senior director for Mobile Money. “Increased collaboration by some of NFC’s most influential stakeholders will support the creation and facilitate the integration of business for the mobile network industry related to NFC-based services.”